Tag Archives: 401k

Two articles I read over the weekend should scare the pants off anyone concerned about safeguarding their retirement. On top of that, the content of those articles might cause you to think I might have had specific advance knowledge of President Obama’s sinister plan to hijack your retirement savings. But, I assure you, I did not!

Click on image above to order your copy of The National Bet by Bob McCarty.

Labor Department officials are determined to produce a new standard of fiduciary duty for anyone giving retirement investment advice, once they process concerns raised in thousands of comment letters and four days of hearings on their proposal.

We heard the same sort of rhetoric surrounding development and implementation of the anything-but-Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., “ObamaCare”) that’s resulted in having inept government bureaucrats in charge of a vital part of your life and one-third of the nation’s economy.

Put simply, the proposal is currently too complex and costly for firms and advisers to operationalize in their businesses. The mechanism it introduces to preserve commission-based advice on IRAs and other retirement accounts — the best-interest contract exemption (BICE) — is so complex, costly and fraught with unpredictable legal liability as to amount to an effective ban on commissions as a viable form of compensation for advice.

Summing things up, the Obama Administration is using its henchmen at the Department of Labor to do to the financial services industry what has done to the nation’s healthcare system, and we’ve all seen how well that’s worked out.

Now, back to my headline-shaping denial — that is, that I had no specific advance knowledge of the Obama Administration’s plan to hijack your retirement savings. I stand by that denial. At the same time, however, I must admit that President Obama’s efforts do remind me of what takes place in my third book and first crime-fiction novel, The National Bet.

Read the excerpt below, from Chapter 10 of the book, and let me know if you agree:

A few minutes past noon on May 11, 2015, President Barack Obama shocked the nation during an announcement carried live on all of the major television and radio networks as well as PBS, C-Span, YouTube and thousands of new media outlets.

Barely two years after the nation’s forty-fourth president had proposed a cap on lifetime contributions to individual retirement and 401(k) accounts at “about three million dollars for someone retiring in 2013,” he told Americans something that cut even deeper.

“The American economy is on the verge of collapse and, after consulting with members of my cabinet, I decided to take swift action to avert disaster. A few minutes ago, I signed an Executive Order that effectively places the Treasury Secretary in what I like to describe as a guardianship role over the retirement savings plans of all Americans.”

Hearing the news, Americans braced themselves for what he would say next.

“So, what does that mean? It means this: if you have an IRA, a 401K, a pension or any other type of retirement plan, it means it will now be held in trust, safe, by the United States Government. And it means you can sleep comfortably tonight knowing it is safe.”

Unlike the never-implemented proposal the president had pitched in May 2013 as a way to prevent the people he called “wealthy individuals” from accumulating “substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement savings,” this executive order—the most recent of more than two-hundred he had signed since taking office—left Americans feeling as if a sacred trust had been broken.

After the fine-print details of the order—conveniently omitted by the president during his television address— became public, Americans became angry, feeling as if they had been robbed of their retirement nest eggs. In turn, they began directing their anger at anyone remotely connected to Washington, D.C.

To find out what happens in the rest of this crime-fiction tale in which financial matters actually play a very small part, order a copy of The National Bet. You’ll be glad you did!

On Monday, I republished an article under the headline, CODE RED: No Easy Day for Green Beret on Witness Stand. It’s a piece I had shared on the same day two years earlier about Army Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart‘s time on the witness stand during his military trial in 2009. Combined with the events that took place before and after the highly-decorated Green Beret combat veteran’s trial, it makes for hair-raising drama inside my first nonfiction book, Three Days In August.

Because financial news was dominating the headlines, I also shared a pertinent excerpt from my first crime-fiction novel, The National Bet, with my Facebook friends on Monday. It includes President Barack Obama saying this:

“So, what does that mean? It means this: if you have an IRA, a 401K, a pension or any other type of retirement plan, it means it will now be held in trust, safe, by the United States Government. And it means you can sleep comfortably tonight knowing it is safe.”

On Tuesday, I received life-changing news that will significantly impact my future and my family’s future. Though I cannot reveal details, I can say that it will allow me to continue to write.

Also on Tuesday, I shared a video with my Facebook friends that I had shared with readers of this site seven years earlier. It’s a CNN interview with President Obama’s Kenyan half-brother, George Hussein Onyango Obama, who was living in a hut in a Nairobi slum. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what to make of it.

On Wednesday, I became privy to details about one of the most shocking cases of military injustice ever. As a result, I spent much of that day and the rest of the week digesting dozens of pages of documents. On Thursday, I shared the first details of the case under the headline, Army Lawyer Surfaces in New Bogus Prosecution Effort. You’ll want to stay tuned as I plan to offer extensive pre-trial reporting on the case before it goes to trial in October.

After learning about the “Green-on-Blue” attack deaths of two U.S. Air Force members in Afghanistan Thursday, I recalled the deaths of three young Marines in a similar incident three years earlier. Published Friday, the piece appears under the headline, Preventable ‘Green-on-Blue’ Attack Costs Two American Lives, and points readers to the place where they can learn how such attacks could have been prevented, my second nonfiction book, The Clapper Memo.

Coming only days after the passage of a controversial trade agreement, recent Supreme Court Decisions on gay marriage and healthcare have many Americans upset with the folks in Washington, D.C., who claim to represent their interests. If you count yourself among them, I think you’ll enjoy the timely excerpt below from Chapter 11 of my recently-released crime-fiction novel, The National Bet:

Click image above to order a copy of the book.

With the line of succession to the presidency obliterated, surviving members of the U.S. House and Senate met for five days straight to discuss a one-time, extra-Constitutional means for resolving this never-before-experienced crisis. They were joined by a select number of individuals from outside the legislative branch who had been instrumental in securing the top-level resignations. Together, they worked to select a successor to serve out the remainder of President Obama’s second term.

Minus any smoke signals, several rounds of papal election-style voting took place during an exhausting three-day period until one man, a proven leader without the baggage of a Beltway insider, emerged from the pack.

Governor Franklin G. Rivera was a second-term governor from Wyoming who some people—but not the man himself—liked to refer to as “FGR.” Far more conservative than the three-term president who, decades earlier, had been associated with a similar three-letter acronym, Governor Rivera’s public approval ratings were higher than any other statewide office holder in the country.

With much trepidation, the governor accepted the job just a few minutes before noon Saturday, July 4, 2015.

After taking the oath of office behind closed doors and without fanfare, the nation’s first Latino president addressed the nation at 3 p.m., delivering the first of many difficult messages he would be called upon to share as Commander- in-Chief:

My fellow Americans, many of you have suffered tremendous losses during the past several months. To you, I offer a sincere apology on behalf of every elected official in Washington.

Members of Congress have, with the cooperation of too many American presidents, gotten away with robbery for far too long. They’ve allowed taxing and spending to get out of control. And they’ve allowed government regulation to trample common sense and decency. As a result, we’ve all paid a price higher than most of us care to calculate.

During the next twelve months, I pledge to work tirelessly to establish legal safeguards in our system via which we will do more than simply prevent members of Congress from increasing the national debt. The safeguards I propose will involve imposing stiff financial penalties on individual members of Congress who choose to waste taxpayers’ dollars on any projects or programs that increase the national debt and the burden on our children and grandchildren.

Even more important than that, however, is my top priority—ensuring that all of your assets, taken from you illegally by the previous administration, are returned to you as quickly as possible.

I’ve set July 4, 2016, as the date by which your money, the money that is rightfully yours, will be returned, with interest, to your bank accounts, to your 401K accounts and to your other retirement savings vehicles. It will be a Financial Independence Day when government no longer has its hands on your money.

President Rivera’s speech resonated with the justifiably jaded American people.

After learning more about the energetic sixty-year-old president’s background via biopic news and feature reports that surfaced following his appointment, most Americans seemed genuinely appreciative of the fact his legal-immigrant parents had set a good example for their oldest son and his five younger siblings, all of whom had been born in the United States.

Not surprisingly, they liked knowing Rivera’s parents had realized success as farmers, growing mostly wheat and soybeans on the flatlands of eastern Colorado. And they liked the fact that the new president’s four adult children seemed to be decent, well-educated people not seeking to ride their father’s political coattails.

In addition, they liked the fact he had become successful through hard work, determination and a steadfast refusal to run with the pack when the pack was heading in the wrong direction. And they liked how he seemed to take time to think before opening his mouth to speak and refused to compromise his Christian faith.

Most importantly, they liked how President Rivera’s early actions spoke even louder than his personal history.

In addition to signing an executive order on Day One that banned the use of taxpayer dollars on inaugural activities, he signed another that prohibited all federal employees from participating in inaugural activities, public or private.

The new president also completed the process of appointing cabinet members within two days and warned members of Congress not to waste any time in approving his nominees, saying, “We have important business to take care of!”

During his first year in office, President Rivera worked too hard and slept too little while waging a gallant effort to restore stability. Not a single round of golf was played, and vacations were off limits for White House staffers and all who remained employed on Capitol Hill.

I hope you enjoyed this tidbit from The National Bet. Beyond that, I hope you’ll share it and order a copy to see what happens before and after this presidential moment.

On the heels of the 2014 mid-term election results, I couldn’t resist sharing an excerpt (below) from my soon-to-be-released first fiction novel, The National Bet:

Click image above to pre-order ebook.

A few minutes past noon on May 11, 2015, President Barack Obama shocked the nation during an announcement carried live on all of the major television and radio networks as well as PBS, C-Span, YouTube and thousands of new media outlets.

Barely two years after the nation’s forty-fourth president had proposed a cap on lifetime contributions to individual retirement and 401(k) accounts at “about three million dollars for someone retiring in 2013,” he told Americans something that cut even deeper.

“The American economy is on the verge of collapse and, after consulting with members of my cabinet, I decided to take swift action to avert disaster. A few minutes ago, I signed an Executive Order that effectively places the Treasury Secretary in what I like to describe as a guardianship role over the retirement savings plans of all Americans.”

Hearing the news, Americans braced themselves for what he would say next.

“So, what does that mean? It means this: if you have an IRA, a 401K, a pension or any other type of retirement plan, it means it will now be held in trust, safe, by the United States Government. And it means you can sleep comfortably tonight knowing it is safe.”

Unlike the never-implemented proposal the president had pitched in May 2013 as a way to prevent the people he called “wealthy individuals” from accumulating “substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement savings,” this executive order—the most recent of more than two-hundred he had signed since taking office—left Americans feeling as if a sacred trust had been broken.

After the fine-print details of the order—conveniently omitted by the president during his television address— became public, Americans became angry, feeling as if they had been robbed of their retirement nest eggs. In turn, they began directing their anger at anyone remotely connected to Washington, D.C.

The anger spurred by the president’s actions pales in comparison to the level of fear that sweeps the nation after more than 30,000 Americans die mysteriously over the Fourth of July weekend. How did they die? Who is responsible? Find out as you follow FBI Special Agent “Joe-L” Wilson as he faces the challenge of a lifetime — one that becomes very personal after he plays The National Bet.